The onset of the 1905 Revolution

By the turn of the century it seemed that the oil boom had run its course, and in 1898 a prolonged economic depression set in. The resulting unemployment and hardship suffered by the workers turned Baku into a city notorious for labor unrest. The government deemed it expedient to declare in January 1902 a state of emergency under which the police were empowered to bypass established legal procedures in dealing with troublemakers. Nonetheless, the penetration of the working class, at least its non-native segment, by revolutionary organizations progressed apace. Active among the Russians was the RSDWP, the party that in 1903 split into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions. Both wings of the Russian Social Democrats found a formidable rival in the independent labor movement, the Balakhany and Bibi-Eibat Workers Organization. Founded in 1904 by the brothers Lev and Ilya Shchendrikov, this group concentrated on remedying the economic grievances of the local proletariat. The Armenian workers gravitated toward their Social Democratic Hinchak (Bell) Party or toward the more nationalistic Armenian Revolutionary Federation, commonly known as the Dashnaktsutiun.

The accumulated tensions broke out in a spontaneous general strike in July 1903, and then in another one in December 1904. The latter was called by the Shchendrikovs and joined by the RSDWP and the Armenian organizations.